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| Photo Credit: Ford Motor Company |
If there is one thing to know about the Ford Motor Company, the automaker certainly does not tolerate a competitor’s attempt to best their F-Series pickup truck (and for good reason). Ford’s light duty F-150 as well as the tougher F-Series Super Duty products combine to become the best-selling vehicles in North America. Along with 42 consecutive years leading the American truck sales charts, the Ford F-Series brand in Canada is actively working on extending its moniker of being the country’s top-selling pickup truck to 54 years in 2019. To keep their position as a leader in the market, Ford is dedicated to providing a configuration to please almost any potential customer. In recent years, Ford’s truck line has showcased engineering and innovation meant to outshine the competition from General Motors and Ram as well as to a lesser degree Nissan and Toyota. With the anticipation that Tesla Motors is planning to enter the pickup truck market with an all-electric vehicle, Ford seeks to beat the newcomer at its own game.
The evitable shift of vehicles towards electrification for the future of motoring is embedded into Ford’s future lineup looking to increase fuel efficiency and reduce tailpipe emissions. By 2022, the blue oval auto company has committed to offer 40 electrified products across the world with their high-volume pickup truck included in their plans. First announced in late 2017, Ford is preparing a hybrid gasoline/electric-powered version of the F-150 is slated for release in 2020 containing a mobile generator system. This past week, a prototype to an upcoming all-electric Ford F-150 has shown that an environmentally-focused horizon can still consist of some serious muscle.
In a grand display that would raise the eyebrows of fans and even critics of electric vehicles, a load of 10 double-decker rail cars containing 42 2019 Ford F-150 pickup trucks was hauled a distance of 1,000 feet (304.8 meters) by an experimental battery-powered F-150. In a video presentation created by the auto manufacturer, four loyal owners of Ford trucks spanning several generations were treated to a show in a rail yard where the all-electric F-150 prototype performed two demonstrations. The first test of the all-electric Ford F-150 was with empty rail cars weighing 1,000,000 pounds translating to the equivalent of 500 US tons or approximately 453.59 metric tons (tonnes). In the second performance, the 42 Ford F-150 pick up trucks (representing each year of the vehicle’s top-selling status in the United States) weighed 1,250,000 pounds that’s also the equivalent of 625 US tons or just less than 567 tonnes. Both attempts were accomplished by Ford’s Linda Zhang (F-150 Chief Engineer) at the wheel of the prototype truck.
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| Photo Credit: Ford Motor Company |
An astounding feat to observe from a pickup truck, it pales in comparison to the load handling of a freight locomotive. Railway company Union Pacific states the maximum capacity of their heavy axle rail cars can weigh up to 315,000 pounds. The all-electric Ford F-150 pulled equivalent of just less than four fully-loaded rail cars.
Under development, the all-electric Ford F-150 prototype is a loose representation of what kind of truck customers can expect. The demonstration of the more than 1,000,000-pound load pull was also accompanied by a disclaimer that the all-electric pickup truck was towing beyond the rated capacity of the intended production version. No major details given of the prototype or production all-electric Ford F-150 have been announced but more details should be provided before 2022. Among the 40 electrified vehicles Ford plans in three years are 16 battery-powered products.
Below is YouTube video from Ford's official channel of the more than 1,000,000 pull by the all-electric Ford F-150 prototype:
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